


Poison & Wine

by blainedarling



Series: we could have been [5]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-30
Updated: 2013-05-30
Packaged: 2017-12-13 11:56:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/824037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blainedarling/pseuds/blainedarling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Based on the song of the same name by The Civil Wars (pretty loosely for this one, though.) Please, please note the warning on this.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Poison & Wine

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the song of the same name by The Civil Wars (pretty loosely for this one, though.) Please, please note the warning on this.

Blaine had always had a thing about bicycles. He liked that he could dodge around the traffic, weaving his way through gridlocked junctions with ease and an abundance of grace. He liked that he could cut through the park on his way to work, the leaves fluttering above his head as the wind whipped past him. He liked that he didn’t have to worry about the ever-rising cost of gas (despite Sebastian’s protests that he shouldn’t have to anyway) and he liked that he was doing at least a little to help the environment. 

Really, Sebastian could find little reason to complain. There was something so beautiful about Blaine on a bicycle that warmed him right to the tips of his toes. Not to mention the weekends spent whizzing through quiet lanes and forest paths, Sebastian tucked on the back of Blaine’s bicycle, keeping each other warm in the breeze. 

But how Sebastian wished Blaine hadn’t taken the bicycle that day.

It was foggy, a dull mist settling over the city, the damp chill seeping right down to Blaine’s skin as he rode through the centre. It was the middle of the day on a Wednesday, so the roads were relatively quiet. Those were his favourite times, when he could ride and ride, breath coming out in pants as he sped up, zipping around corners with a giddy grin. 

Blaine’s ears perked up, the chirp of birdsong tickling somewhere near him. He turned his eyes from the road, just long enough so he could have a look, so he could see what it was that was producing such a wonderful sound. But that look became just a moment too long and by the time he turned back, he was hurtling towards a pedestrian crossing, far too fast to slow in time.

A small child was already halfway across the road, a little blonde girl, pigtails up with a vibrant red bow, her eyes focused entirely on her feet as she skipped over the painted markings.

Blaine knew he couldn’t stop. He also knew chances were slim of the girl noticing in time, let alone her apparently idle babysitter who was trailing behind, still on the sidewalk, texting furiously. He did the only thing he could think to do, a moment of blind panic, his body moving on autopilot. He swerved.

His bicycle caught on the edge of the sidewalk, the entire frame flipping, Blaine’s body flying into the air. He curled up into a ball on instinct, flinching at the sickening crack of his impact with the pavement. His head was throbbing, a fiery sharp pain at the base of his spine spreading right up to his neck, his whole body aching uncomfortably. 

When Blaine next awoke, he was in the clinical uniformity of a hospital bed. He could barely move, every part of him numb or aching in some way. Even keeping his eyes open felt like a kind of brutal challenge, dizziness crashing through him in waves. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to sleep or throw up or something else entirely. He passed out again just seconds later.

_You only know what I want you to  
I know everything you don't want me to  
Oh your mouth is poison, your mouth is wine  
Oh you think your dreams are the same as mine_

The doctors never sugarcoated it, from the moment Blaine was brought in. In the first few days, he could barely stay conscious long enough to even listen to anything they were saying, but Sebastian heard it all. Severely damaged, was repeated a few times. Nothing anyone could do, emphasised periodically. A few weeks at most, on an almost daily basis.

In the last couple of days, it was, to an untrained eye like Sebastian’s, almost like Blaine was getting better. He couldn’t quite sit up, nor could he do much beyond open his eyes and mumble a few words in reply to Sebastian, but it was something. It was hope, a momentary flash at the very least.

Yet, the doctors kept gently reminding him about the goodbyes. About how he’d regret it if he didn’t. So, Sebastian sat, day and night at Blaine’s bedside, trying to find the words to say goodbye. Except there were none - a million words in the English language there may be, but no combination could ever be made to express what he needed to.

“It’s a shame all those wedding plans will go to waste,” Blaine whispered on the last day, his eyes glazed over slightly with tears, his hand largely limp in Sebastian’s.  
And that was the moment in which Sebastian realised that yes, he really would have to say goodbye. “We got married three years ago, B,” he reminded him gently.  
Blaine’s eyes flickered for a moment, a soft smile quirking at the corners of his cracked lips. “Oh, yes. Such a beautiful wedding,” he murmured, although he still looked a little confused.

“I love you more than anything, you know that?” Sebastian began softly, the flutter of Blaine’s eyelashes enough of a response for him. “You are the one that shouldn’t have been for me and yet always was. You’re like sunshine and I’m the black cloud that threatens to cover it. But you always try to bring out the sunshine in me. Because you are the only one who ever really saw it at all.”

Sebastian choked back a laugh, not even bothering to try and wipe away the tears that were spilling endlessly down his cheeks. “You are my forever, Blaine. And the world is cruel to take you from me,” he whispered hoarsely, as his husband’s eyes closed, for the last time.

_Oh I don't love you but I always will  
Oh I don't love you but I always will  
Oh I don't love you but I always will  
I always will_

The funeral was probably perfect. Sebastian couldn’t remember most of it. It was like a daze, of people, whose names he’d forgotten, telling him how much Blaine would be missed. Of photos of his beautiful, beloved Blaine scattered everywhere, the bright smile that would shine no more. 

There was only one moment from the entire day that Sebastian truly remembered. He’d been allowed one last moment alone, him and the half-closed wooden box. It wasn’t a corpse, nor was it Blaine. It was a box. Boxes can’t be feared, they can’t make one upset. It was just a harmless box.

“What am I supposed to do if you’re not here to be loved?” he asked quietly, eyebrows furrowed slightly. He lay a single white fabric rose over Blaine’s chest, sighing at how the brightness contrasted with the dark tone of his hair, his eyelashes. “But then again,” he smiled crookedly. “We both know I could never stop loving you.”

The coffin was lowered into the ground a short while later, the first splash of dirt covering over the word engraved in gold over the top. _Always._

_I wish you'd hold me when I turn my back  
The less I give the more I get back_

As time went by, more and more of Sebastian’s friends and family seemed to take to calling in unannounced. They just wanted to see how he was doing, that was all, they persisted. Just wanted to make sure he was eating, and sleeping, and showering, and getting up in the mornings. 

Yes, Sebastian would reply and graciously throw them out of the house. He knew what they were really there for - to see if it was true. True that the house retained every single touch as if Blaine would be back in ten minutes, an hour, at most. His keys on the hook, his shoes by the door, his beanie on the dresser. 

The first few nights, Sebastian had thought it would be better just to try and forget. He’d drunk himself into a state of complete peace, his body lax yet thrumming, his mind struggling to make sense of the simplest things. But even then, he could remember one thing very clearly, above all else: _Blaine._

From that point on, he’d developed a new approach. Any attempt to forget was futile, it would come to nothing and would only serve to cause another twist in his gut as the memories came flooding back involuntarily. Instead, he would remember; but more than that, he would live through the dreams of the past.

Sebastian’s life out with the boxes of photos and the shirts and the books and the everything that made up Blaine, all contained within their house, was rather minimal. He went to work, for the sake of a mortgage that was by then only being paid by one person. Also, to some extent, for the sake of appearances. At least then his colleagues could report that yes, Sebastian was getting up, leaving the house, washing his hair, and so on, on his behalf.

It all came down to the motions. The little, mundane activities that he would work through, all in the content knowledge that at the end of the day, there were more memories awaiting him at home. 

In that way, Blaine was still with him. And if he were not gone, he could not be missed. If he could not be missed, Sebastian could not be broken. And so, life went on.

_Oh your hands can heal, your hands can bruise  
I don't have a choice but I still choose you_

It took far longer than Sebastian would perhaps care to admit to really come to terms with the truth of the situation. Once he did, he realised that the small changes would not quite be enough. He could put Blaine’s keys in a drawer, or he could sell the house and buy a smaller, one-person apartment nearer to the office. He could stuff Blaine’s shoes in the back of the closet or he could give them to a charity shop. The beanie, however, would sit atop his head on the blustery days, as he fondly thought on his late husband.. Fondly, but without convincing himself that he would return home to find Blaine sprawled on the sofa, asleep over a Tolstoy novel and half a cold mug of tea. 

If there was one thing Sebastian knew for certain, it was that he wouldn’t change a single moment of what he had had with Blaine, to save himself any pain it might have caused. He’d never attributed much as being down to luck, nor did he consider himself lucky. But Blaine was his lucky star, his drop of fate that he had never deserved but had somehow been granted all the same.

Eight years. Eight years of happiness was more than enough for Sebastian to accept the decades of emptiness that may follow. In all honesty, Sebastian didn’t have a choice; he was tied to Blaine whether he should want to be or not. But should that magical genie appear from the heavens and offer to break the tie? He would shove him right back into his magical lamp with a huff of _good riddance._

The worst moments came late at night, when Sebastian tossed and turned in a bed that was far too big for just him, the cool metal of his wedding band digging into his finger. Those were the moments when he wondered why he hadn’t been able to alter what had happened. If only he’d agreed to meet Blaine at a different place for lunch, if only he’d called and cancelled, if only he’d- 

But then morning would come and Sebastian would rise, to the sight of Blaine’s smile from the photo on his nightstand. That smile had always had the ability to tell Sebastian what he already knew. In that case, it was that he could talk about what ifs until the moon and every one of the stars died out, but it would not alter the past.

Blaine’s smile told him it was another morning, another day. Blaine’s smile encouraged him to smile himself. But most of all, Blaine’s smile told Sebastian that he was always with him, to balance him out in a way only he ever could have.


End file.
